6.20.2015

Star Trek: Vanguard: Summon the Thunder so far (spoilers)

I can't even remember when I put that picture in the "Currently Reading" tab on the sidebar and in that time I've probably read several other books. I have a habit of doing this: I'll start reading a book, get a ways into it before dropping it and reading something else. I'll come back around to it sooner rather than later and this was the case with Summon the Thunder, the second book in the Star Trek: Vanguard. I can't stress enough that I didn't stop reading the book because it was bad or uninteresting or anything. Summon the Thunder really is a very good Trek novel that I'd recommend easily.

Currently, I'm on page 274 out of 420 pages total, although the last few pages are an "About the Authors" section and the usual ads that appear at the back of Trek novels. So what have I experienced so far? Hit the jump to find out and heed the spoiler warning in the post's title.
Well, a planet exploded and that's easily the biggest thing that's occurred so far. The USS Endeavour lost one captain and gained another. The latter is an utterly badass of a woman who popped her jaw back in place after it was dislocated in an attack. Let me repeat that because it really, really bears repeating: Atish Khatami has her lower jaw dislocated when the Endeavour is attacked by the Shedai's planetary weapons, and she pops the sucker back into place with her bare hands.

One of the things I like about Summon the Thunder is that it adds more point of view characters, more sides to the story. Whereas the first book of the series, Harbinger, is like a pilot episode and establishes the setting, characters, plot, etc., Summon the Thunder expands things by adding the Klingon, Romulan, and Shedai Wanderer POVs to the mix. The inclusion of the Romulans is interesting because the book is probably set before The Original Series episode "The Balance of Terror", so the Romulans in the book are very much trying to keep their presence as on the down low as possible. All three POVs are nice additions, especially the Romulan.